Bait: A Novel (10 page)

“It doesn’t look like Tal made it,” Ginger replied.

“Tal was too far gone,” Nash pressed. “He was in a way worse state than the rest of us. He’d gone longer without a fix; his body and brain were wrecked. Not to mention his stupid idea of trying to swim that channel at night. Probably lost his direction in the dark, got tired, and drowned. That’s how I see it.”

Felix shot Nash a look of surprise. There was another likely reason why Tal hadn’t made it, but neither of them had voiced that possibility yet. Nash’s eyes did not meet Felix’s. His next words were steeped in hunger.

“Besides, with Tal gone, there will be more junk for the rest of us.”

The incentive piqued their interest. Everyone stared at the next island, judging the distance, weighing the options. Kenny didn’t look so sure, but the others were becoming convinced. Withdrawal was interfering with their logic, crushing common sense more and more with every passing minute.

“If we stay we might get rescued,” Kenny offered. “How ’bout we wait it out?”

“Time ain’t on our side,” replied Nash. “We’ve been here a day now, and we haven’t seen shit. No boats, no planes, nothing except those fuckers on that yacht, and they’re obviously not here to help.”

Felix cracked his knuckles. “I ain’t down with resigning ourselves to a fate when we can make our own.”

Panic seeped into Kenny’s voice. “Look, I really think we should stay—”

“If we stay we’ll all lose our damn minds,” Nash said. “And then what? We die of thirst or hunger, and rot on this island.”

His opinion carried real weight now, swaying the group. Staying behind suddenly seemed like a death sentence. When Ginger spoke she seemed to speak for everyone, even Kenny.

“We should eat the rest of the food, drink all the water. We’re going to need the energy for the trip.”

Nash nodded. “Let’s make our move in an hour.”

“I
f they don’t move soon,” the tallest man said, “we’ll have to do something about it.”

Four men stood on the deck of the motor yacht, the obvious leader among them giving orders. He was older than the others, early forties, and he’d been in more battles than all of them put together. Even at a distance there was something not right about his face, discolorations marring the inhuman textures that passed for skin. His blue irises were so pale that at a glance it seemed only black pupils were centered in the whites. When he grinned it looked like a hideous wound. The cruelty that festered in his mouth was the product of years immersed in savagery. The others were unaffected by it. They were hard men, trained killers and skilled survivors. Buchanan, Reposo, and Turk, the remnants of a special forces detachment, now led by one man, and one man only: the one they called Greer. When Greer spoke, all ears listened.

“I want the radio and radar monitored at all times, and all of you keep an eye on the horizons. Just in case. When these folks decide to haul ass, I want no interruptions.”

Each man nodded once. Buchanan ran his fingers through his cropped blond hair and cleared his throat.

“Something on your mind, Buchanan?” Greer asked.

“Just wondering if you would like me to give our guests over there a little incentive to get the ball rolling.”

Greer gave another of his unnerving grins. “Let’s see if they participate of their own free will first. Then we’ll see what we can do about encouraging them.”

He turned his attention to the five stranded on the beach and watched their movements with disdain. Junkies, each and every one of them, the kind of parasitic lost causes Greer wouldn’t think twice about shooting in the back of the head and kicking into a shallow grave. Miami was full of these wasters now, the disease of addiction and AIDS spreading through city blocks faster than an epidemic of bedbugs. The rampant crime that followed in order to fuel the fixes of these bottom-feeders angered Greer even more. His hometown had never seen such pestilence. Greer had regularly dispatched far better men in third world countries. Seeing his homeland infested with such sorry excuses for human beings made his blood boil.

They’re nothing but paving stones on the road to ruin,
Greer thought.

Damn scabs. He encountered them almost everywhere he went, hanging on corners with teeth knocked out of their heads and a stench about them, glassy eyed and willing to do just about anything for the promise of another hit. Dope fiends desperate for a dollar had offered Greer every stolen good and sex act known to man. Courage, strength, honor, discipline—these addicts knew no such things. They were weak, good for nothing more than to be fed upon. The weak would be the sustenance of the strong. Greer feasted on the inferiority.

“One down, five to go.”

“I can’t believe we lost one already,” Turk said. “What a waste.”

“Shit happens,” replied Reposo, his native New York accent unmistakable. “We can’t control the chaos all the time.”

“And what would be the fun in that?” Greer chuckled. “Chaos is a wonderful thing. Chaos . . .”

“. . . is the score on which reality is written,” the others said in unison.

They knew that score well. Innumerable situations had seen them surrounded by chaos, and on each occasion they had made the chaos their own, fighting fire with fire, burning everything to the ground. As Greer had taught them, the trick was to become the phoenix before striking the match.

“Beer, anyone?” Greer asked.

All heads nodded. Greer stepped into the cabin and grabbed four bottles from a cooler inside the doorway. He cast a glance at the loose pile of hundred-dollar bills on a card table nearby and wondered who would be the lucky winner this time out.

“We got movement on the beach, boss,” Turk said.

Greer came back out, handing a beer to each of his men. He put a Cuban cigar between his lips and Buchanan leaned over with his lighter. Protruding from his mouth, it looked the opposite of every iconic image, a length of smoldering shit clasped between the teeth of some foul, vicious anomaly. Greer took a heavy drag and held it in, smiling as he watched the stranded pick at their food.

“Well, that’s a good sign,” he said, exhaling thick smoke. “It looks like they’ve finally started eating.”

E
ating was harder than anticipated. Grinding food with aching jaws and teeth was a painful prologue to swallowing mush down sore, ragged throats. Guts wanted to reject everything that entered. The stranded cupped hands over mouths as they chewed, gulping hard and fast to keep their intake from racing back up. Kenny proved least successful. Nash watched fresh vomit seep through the boy’s gate of fingers again and again. Ordinarily such a sight would be nauseating, but Nash felt strangely detached as he watched the kid puke. Felix seemed to be doing the best out of them, never retching or heaving. Every time the vomit tried to come he growled it into submission.

When they had eaten all they were capable of, they washed their sickly meal down with bottled water. Nash sat back and stretched out his stomach to aid digestion. Ginger stood and gave him an impatient look.

“Getting comfy?”

“If we try swimming too soon, we’ll get cramps.”

Ginger folded her arms, her look changing to one of contempt. “You do know all that stuff about waiting an hour before swimming is a load of horseshit, right?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is,” she pressed.

Kenny took his place beside Ginger. “I think she’s right, Nash.”

“Fuck, like it matters,” Felix grumbled. “We barely got anything in us anyway.”

Nash shrugged. “Well, maybe it would be wise to take some time and talk about what we’re about to do.”

“We’re going swimming,” said Felix with a sneer. “What’s there to discuss?”

“For starters, I wanna know if we’re all in this together, or is it every poor fucker for themselves out there?”

Felix gave him a look that suggested the answer was obviously the latter. It made Ginger and Maria uncomfortable. Kenny seemed terrified by it.

“Together, of course,” Ginger said. “That’s the only way I can see us making it.”

Maria nodded. “Yes, together is good.”

Felix laughed. “Speak for yourselves.”

Ginger rubbed her temples, trying to hold back the venom that was seeping into her mouth, but to no avail. Poison coated her next words.

“You’re fucking full of it, Felix, you know that? What if it’s your dumb ass that runs into trouble out there? What if it’s you that needs
our
help? What then, huh?”

Felix laughed louder. “Trust me, girl, I can take care of myself. I’ve been handling my shit since I was old enough to walk. It’s you who should be worried, being a skinny bitch and all.”

Ginger glared, teeth grinding hard enough to flex a vein in her neck that didn’t go unnoticed by anyone. She pointed at Felix, finger trembling with anger.

“Listen, asshole, whatever you think you got in upper body strength, you lack double in smarts. Don’t be so fucking ignorant. Take that testicle-sized brain of yours and try thinking something through just once before you—”

“Enough!”

Nash’s outburst silenced them. They turned their faces away, eyes cast down like the scolded schoolkids Nash wanted them to feel like. Felix went to say something, but Nash wasn’t finished.

“For fuck’s sake, drop the bickering already. We’re wasting time and energy here. Think we can act like the adults we are and keep our shit together?”

“You mean like you?” Ginger snarled, breathing hard. “Throwing a temper tantrum like a fucking four-year-old?”

“Please don’t fight,” Maria whispered. “It will do us no good.”

Ginger locked eyes with Nash. “She’s right.”

The looks Nash and Ginger traded with Felix were hateful, though they argued no more. A fragile truce formed without another word. They knew more infighting would tear off the masks everyone was trying to hold in place, revealing them for the volatile messes they were fast becoming. Nash felt new pain punching behind his eyes, hammering on his optic nerve. His ear canals felt hot and sore. The heroin wasn’t calling to him as much as screaming for him now.

“Do you really want that smack over there, Felix?” Nash asked, wiping sweat from his brow. “You’re dead set on it?”

“What you think?”

“Well, we increase our chance of getting to it if we work together. Teamwork, shit, it’s grade school logic, Felix. Even you went to grade school.”

“Did some community college too, motherfucker,” Felix replied and made a show of cracking his knuckles.

“Then c’mon, use your damn head. You know I’m right.”

“I don’t know that. Y’all might just slow me down.”

Nash tried to soften his voice. “Dude, we all do this together and we’re five times more likely to make that score. Safety in numbers, know what I’m saying?”

Felix tilted his head and considered. The quiet desperation in Nash’s strained tone was becoming more believable. Lies seemed less likely.

“How can I trust you?”

“I give you my word.”

“Your fucking word? Oh, you gotta do better than that, son.”

“All I have is my word—”

“And it ain’t
nearly
enough.”

Nash extended his hand. “I swear on my life. If you happen to need help, however unlikely, I’m there for you. Even at my own peril. Understand where I’m coming from? I got your back if you got mine. You dig?”

Felix’s head tilted the other way, eyes boring into Nash’s, trying to figure out if the man was trustworthy or absolutely full of it. Felix saw nothing that concerned him. He grabbed the hand before him and shook once.

“Yeah, I can dig that.”

“Fine, good,” Nash said, casting a glance at the others. “We’re all agreed, then?”

Ginger and Maria didn’t reply. Their position was already clear. The one person who needed to speak up wasn’t saying anything.

“Kenny?” Nash asked. “You cool?”

Kenny didn’t reply. He only stared at his toes in the sand.

“You good to go?” Nash pressed. “This is do-or-die time, dude.”

Kenny sighed. “It might very well be do-
and-
die time if I go out there.”

“Hey, I thought you said you were down for this.”

“I never
said
anything.”

Kenny looked at Ginger then, the one who had spoken for them all before. There was accusation in his eyes. Nash could see the tension in the young man’s hunched shoulders and stringy muscles, the acne on his body looking like it might pop with the pressure. Everyone waited. Everyone except for Maria. She searched the sand and picked up the sharpest stone she could find. When Kenny finally spoke his voice was barely a whisper.

“I won’t do it.”

They all would have stared him down for it, trying to bend the boy’s will with muted suggestion, but Kenny refused to make eye contact with anyone.

“Then we’re leaving you the fuck behind, kid,” Nash said at length.

The words caught Kenny in the gut, forcing out a breath of shocked air. He looked again at Ginger, this time with pleading eyes, hoping she might offer to hang back. Her eyes told him she would not.

“Forget him,” Felix said. “Let’s get on with it.”

He walked to the water’s edge alongside Nash and Maria. Ginger lingered, finding it hard to turn her back on the only person in the group she had a soft spot for. Finally, she stepped to Kenny, neck strained, eyebrows knitted together cruelly. He leaned in and listened as she whispered. He grew more and more agitated with every hushed sentence she spoke before abandoning him to regroup with the others.

“Hell of a swim,” Felix said, hand capped over his eyes as he gauged the distance again. “Hope we all got the nuts for it.”

“Give me a knife and I’ll borrow yours,” said Ginger.

Nash looked back at Kenny standing on the beach. The young man’s face was red and pinched. His lips were pursed hard enough to whiten.

“What the hell did you say to him?” Nash asked.

“I’d rather not repeat it,” Ginger said. “Don’t want to sour your opinion of me.”

They all turned to regard the rigid boy. A scream was stuck in his throat. His posture suggested that he was on the verge of doing something drastic.

“How long you think he’ll last out here by himself?” Felix asked.

“Oh, not long,” Ginger replied. “That’s why he’s about to—”

“Wait!” Kenny yelled. “Fuck, wait. I’m rolling with you guys.”

He ran to them like a lost child reunited with kin, the redness in his face dissipating as he rejoined the group.

“What made you change your mind?” asked Felix.

Kenny didn’t reply. He stayed close, practically a shadow to Ginger, though his shifting eyes glimpsed at her with trepidation. Ginger smiled, but there was no triumph in it. Whatever her words, they had broken his will. They had been necessary.

“We should stick together out there,” said Kenny, a sudden gull’s cry causing him to flinch.

“Agreed,” Nash replied. He eyed Felix. “We’ll keep it tight.”

To be out in open water alone was a terrifying thought, even for Felix despite all his bravado. Still, his response was a nonchalant “Sure, whatever.”

Nash shed his shirt and stepped into the sea, the shallow water around his feet colder than he anticipated. The ocean breeze brought goose bumps from his bare flesh. As the wind passed him he felt the growing gap between his body and the others. They weren’t following. Nash turned impatiently on them.

“Hey, are we doing this or what?”

They stalled, fully realizing the finality of their de- cision. Nash stepped out of the water and drew a line in the sand with his foot.

“Here’s your starting block,” he said. “Cross it and you’re already in the race.”

No one budged.

“You all know how things will end if we stay here.”

Felix pulled off his shirt and crossed. The rest followed reluctantly. Nash led them into the water until it was thigh deep. Then he took in as much air as his sickly lungs would allow and dove headfirst into an incoming wave.

The chilled sea instantly cleared his feverish head. Under the water Nash felt his heartbeat pound, quickening as something primal protested his plan to traverse the channel. He reasoned his decision again, but it was far less convincing this time. A great beast reared its ugly head, setting its sights on him.

Sweet Christ,
he thought.

The monolith came toward him, preceded by an announcement that was horrifying in its assertion. Even under the water he could hear it, feel it, threatening to flatten him. It had a volume that only the ocean could afford.

You’re mine,
it said.

Nash saw truth. A perspective completely alien to him granted the glimpse into his harsh reality. He could barely contain the revelation. He and the others, they were mere flecks of flesh on a blue body of unfathomable dimension. The deep would take them all, sucking skin tones and white bones into the liquid void to be crushed into nothingness.

Nash let out a submerged scream, bubbles racing past his ears. He broke the surface gasping for air.

Don’t do it,
he thought, shuddering.
Everyone go back. Go back now.

He wiped salt water from his eyes and swiveled toward the others, mouth already opening to tell them of his change of heart.

“Wait,” Nash started. “I’m . . . uh . . . not sure—”

Felix held up a finger. “Don’t you even think of backing out now, motherfucker.”

Nash flinched. The others stared at him with nothing less than hatred. All that came from Nash’s mouth were murmurs, his planned words dying in his throat. It was clear on each of their faces, the anger at his cowardice. If their self-appointed leader tried to renege they might just beat the shit out of him for it.

Nash cleared his throat. “I’m not trying to back out.”

He could see they were committed now, as committed as he had convinced them to be. New words, ones that would save face, formed where the others had been.

“Any trouble out there and you holler,” he said. “As loud as you can, okay?”

They nodded impatiently, casting wary glances at each other. Felix waded farther and dove headfirst. He resurfaced with focus and determination, apparently not even remotely feeling the ocean’s enormity the way Nash had. Ginger and Maria dove next and came up nearby, bobbing chest high in the water, shocked by the cold. Kenny resisted once more. Nash didn’t mind this time. In fact, he welcomed it.

“Move it, princess,” Felix said.

Kenny waded in the whole way, grimacing at the temperature of the water splashing against him. Nash heard the ocean again, whispering to him between the crashing of waves.

You’re all mine now.

It was Nash’s turn to stall, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“Hey, this is your plan, cowboy,” Ginger said. “We’re following
you
.”

Nash chewed his bottom lip, wondering if he still had a way out. To veto now would discredit him completely. With great reluctance, he decided against it.

“Then I suggest you try to keep up.”

And with that he was gone, swallowed by the sea. When he popped up twenty feet away he didn’t look back. He clawed the surface with windmill strokes, his companions struggling to match pace. At the outset they swam in a close-knit group, but it wasn’t long before Nash pulled ahead. At first he refused to open his eyes under water, but within minutes he found himself peeking. His squinted sight revealed little. A singular blue blur expanded before him, dotted with the occasional fuzzy outline of rock or reef on the sandy bottom. The blue darkened as the shallows receded. Nash suddenly thought he might know what floating in an eternity might feel like.

A fleck of flesh on a blue planet,
he thought.
That’s all I am.

The glimpses into the salty expanse burned Nash’s eyes. The water grew incrementally colder with every yard he traveled through it. He could hear his companions splashing behind, sounds gradually lagging as he increased the distance. Loneliness engulfed him.

Less than a mile, less than a mile,
he kept thinking.
Stay focused.

He maintained strong strokes, despite the pain infecting his muscles. Rotator cuffs seemed to grate with sand inside his shoulders, pricked with shards of glass. Triceps felt as though they were being cut out of his arms with a dull scalpel. Legs flushed with an acidic burn threatened to give out, but the starvation for junk pulled him through the water like a fish on a hook. He could already smell the cooking spoon in his head, see the yellow-brown puddle in the utensil bubbling, its texture like grease from deep-fried chicken wings pooled on a plate. He felt the needle puncture skin and plunge relief into vein. Within seconds it would wash over his pain and wrap him in a blessed blanket, snug and numb and blissful.